NEW YORK — Stocks pulled back Monday as traders retreated from a rally that has brought indexes to their highest levels since the peak of the financial crisis in September 2008.
Gold crossed $1,400 an ounce to another record as traders looked for safe places to park money.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 37.24, or 0.3 percent, to close at 11,406.84. It surged 2.9 percent last week after the Federal Reserve announced a $600 billion stimulus package for the U.S. economy.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 index fell 2.60, or 0.2 percent, to 1,223.25.
The Nasdaq composite index continued to outperform other market measures, as it has done all year, edging up 1.07, or 0.04 percent, to 2,580.05.
The technology-focused index is up 13.7 percent for the year, compared with a 9.4 percent gain for the Dow and a 9.7 percent gain for the S&P 500.
Financial companies were down the most among the 10 industry groups that make up the S&P 500 index. Technology, energy and materials companies were the only groups in the index to show meager gains.
“Today is shaping up to be a modest sell-off, and that’s to be expected,” said Barnaby Levin, a managing director at HighTower Advisors.
Stocks have risen in recent weeks on better-than- expected corporate earnings reports and the introduction of a bond-buying program by the Federal Reserve that is intended to stimulate the economy by driving interest rates lower and encouraging spending.
The dollar rose 0.5 percent against a broad basket of currencies. That’s a negative for big U.S. companies such as Caterpillar Inc. that do a lot of business overseas.
